No shame DAINLa !

From the pen of a gynaecologist, a doting mother of a wonderful girl TIA and a DAINLa, guest contributor Dr. Sagnika Dash strongly advocates humanistic ideologies.

It was my fourteenth day at my in-laws' place. As a newly wed, I chose to follow all that was requested, directed and dictated. Most of the things made sense except for the rituals relating to menstruation. As soon as a daughter-in-law (Let us call her DAINLa!) gets her menses for the first time at her in-laws' place, it is no less than a shame and guilt for her that is she meant to feel but also the fact that she is not PREGNANT. This goes circulated amongst the peers as she is asked to go through some specific untoward rituals which makes it all the more obvious that she is MENSTRUATING!

Thus there I was an obedient DAINLa who spotted a few blood stains on cloth then, naive enough to ask her mother-in-law who then guided her through the unprecedented treacherous process of rituals. Then there followed a bunch of orders, "Don't touch anything Bahu! Use the separate bathroom. Don't touch the tap. You will be given one bucket of water to wash yourself. After you are done with your bath, we shall give you a cloth." Meanwhile I could not stop analyzing about the ground, the soil which is a good conductor and thus the logic of impurity for me failed miserably then and there. Washing off oneself with that one bucket included a nine yards of elegance, the stained garment, the body smeared with a paste of herbs and sticky-stinking oil and the one and a half feet of long hair. It was only a sari that I was handed over at the end, I mean a single sari without the accessories. I wrapped up the long cloth, trying to hide my body which eventually made me look like a character from "The Mummy Returns".

Believe me! The walk from the celebrated bathroom to home was not a cake walk. I call it  the worst RAMP WALK as I was on full display considering that the neighbours on the first floor and some peeping could very well sense what had happened. Shame, puppy shame!! The bride was menstruating. I was instructed to clean my sanitary napkins in a separate polybag thoroughly even though they were complete disposables. The polybag belonged to the celebrated bathroom. Thus everytime I went to dispose those pads off, it made people around me aware of the length of my monthly cycle. That was the day I decided firmly that I would not declare my menstruation at my in-laws' place ever. I was lucky that I never had to stay there for long. The next month I went to visit my parents. Even though my dates were approaching when I got back, I mentioned all intentionally that  I got them at my parents' place back then. Isolation of menstruating women makes things worse, especially  when I was given a bucket of water to clean myself which I was unable to do so that day in a complete new place. Instead I was made to waste precious water on cleaning a disposable pad, to what avail and to ward off which black magic I am still not sure till date.

Odia Raja hallmark - Alata

Making women clad in improper clothes on full display to neighbours, outsiders and so what if even insiders is never a sensible idea to deal with the pain, bleeding and the shame associated with menstruation. When the world cannot stop going ga-ga about building toilets indoors for ladies, why can't the menstruating woman take bath indoors there? This particular saga makes me wonder if a woman with a voice and social relevance can be made to follow unbelievable customs which belittles a normal physiological bodily function, what about the million voiceless suffering? I can't imagine! I belong to a state which proudly celebrates the menstruation festival since ages known as Raw-Ja. But the persistence of ignorance and customs ingrained in households somewhere still humiliates my womanhood. 

                                              

When my daughter grows up, I would want her to feel empowered because of menstruation and there shall be no rules and no shame. 

For more understanding on menstrual hygiene education, please refer 

 https://www.womensweb.in/2020/07/significance-of-menstrual-hygiene-education/